Chapter 41 #3
“You’ll think of something,” I tell Rennick, quiet but certain.
“A way to right the wrong. Or balance the scales, at least. I understand now that’s what mom was doing when she started the sanctuary.
She knew she couldn’t bring the whole network down—couldn’t shut down all the clubs or stop the auctions.
But what she could do is weaken their system by chipping away from it at a distance.
She started removing pieces from their board.
” I think of the clubs that were raided, of the rescue missions that pulled omegas out alive.
The ones who stumbled through the manor’s front doors shaking and half feral with fear.
And how once they left us, they did it standing on their own two feet, their demons no longer gripping them so tightly.
Eyes bright with the possibility of a real future.
Every piece of this was shaped and carefully tended to by Mom’s hands.
“Taking in the survivors or any omega in need, that was her way of balancing out the hurt she knew was still happening out there. It was her way of refusing to let them keep winning.”
Rennick drags his cheek over the top of my head, scent marking me, then eases back so he can see me properly. His gaze lingers, searching, and I feel the change in him when he finds whatever he’s looking for.
“You were right,” he tells me, skimming the pads of his fingers down the side of my face. “She was extraordinary. And she was a badass.”
My mouth curls even as the grief flares. That’s the thing about missing someone, you learn how to smile through the ache of their absence. You learn that saying their name and telling their stories is what keeps them here.
“You said she was terrifying.”
“I still stand by that.” He doesn’t hesitate, smiling back, though it falters a beat later. “I’m so sorry you lost her, Noa, and I’m sorry for the role I played in it. If I’d known—”
“Don’t,” I cut him off, covering his mouth before he can finish. “You don’t get to carry this. Not now. Not ever.” I’ve already told him this before when we talked things out after waking up in the nest, but I’ll keep doing it until he believes it and absolves himself of the guilt he’s carrying.
His eyes darken, but he lets me continue.
“Merritt was already a dying man when she bound her life to his. That choice was hers. She understood exactly how little time she had and knew our years together would be cut short. But she used that time to prepare me for a world without her, and she left safeguards in place to make sure I’d find my way back to you once she knew it would be safe to. ”
Her final request—to have her ashes spread over my dad’s grave in the Fallamhain Pack cemetery—is one I see for what it was.
It wasn’t a final wish at all. It was a calculated ploy.
She knew her death would coincide with Merritt’s, knew once he was gone that it would be safe for me to come home. That Rennick would be there waiting.
From there, all it took was one touch to start the unravelling of her spell.
I let my hand fall away, but he rejects the loss of contact.
His fingers slide through my hair, tucking loose strands behind my ear before skimming along my cheek.
I tilt into his palm on instinct, asking for more.
My wolf—no longer caged by my mom’s magic, closer than she’s ever been but still just out of reach—purrs.
Her purr hums through me, resonating inside my skull.
“The dreams I started having of you started right after she died—the ones that told me it was time to start remembering. She truly thought of everything,” Rennick notes softly as his expression turns tender, the last of the storm clouds he’d been battling lifting and giving him a reprieve.
“I love looking at you and knowing this isn’t new.
I’ve known you, sweet Noa. Every version of you.
Every stage. I grew up with you and when you were gone, I kept growing for you.
Trying to become a man worthy of your claim. ”
His words settle low in my chest, slipping into places that already know them to be true.
I understand the feeling completely. With our memories whole again, the pull between us has deepened, fed by everything we were before the mate bond took its first breath.
It’s our history. The years we spent growing side by side, learning each other in small, unremarkable ways that mattered more than we could have ever realized.
The quiet moments from our childhood that now stand as evidence that we were always circling, drawn in close by each other’s orbits, without understanding the reason.
We weren’t raised in proximity. We were raised together, laying the foundation for who we’d become when we were finally ready to choose each other fully.
My fingers lift to wrap around the wrist of the hand that still cups my face, pressing my cheek fully into the warmth of his palm. Holding him close. The connection anchors me.
“You are,” I tell him softly. “You are worthy, Rennick. Of my claim. Of my love. You always have been.” I take a slow breath and wait a beat longer than necessary.
Not because I’m afraid of the words, but because I’m not.
They’re the purest truth I’ve ever held.
Rennick’s watching me closely, something vulnerable in his expression, like he knows this moment matters and refuses to rush me through it. “I love you.”
Simple.
Three little words.
But they mean everything.
His reaction is immediate. His fingers press more firmly into my face, not hard, just enough to be sure that I’m real.
That this is happening. For a second, he’s suspended there, looking too stunned to dare move.
Like I’ve handed him something sacred and fragile, and he doesn’t want to risk shattering it.
Rennick hasn’t been paying attention if he thinks my love is delicate. It’s not. It’s survived far too much to break that easily.
My love is indestructible and it’s his.
Then, in a move too fast for my eyes to track, he’s lifting me off the ground, pulling me close until I have no choice but to wrap my legs around his waist. He holds me there, chest to chest, like this is the only space left in the world for me, and letting go means risking the world trying to steal me again.
His lips trail slowly down my cheek, along my jaw, before his nose brushes along me. The bond between us hums, flaring bright and happy. Whole.
“You know,” he rasps, a hint of something lighter breaking through the emotion. “I technically beat you to it.”
“Beat me where?”
His lips brush mine and I can feel the smile there. “I said it first. You just weren’t in any condition to hear me.”
My chest tightens, understanding sliding into place with cruel clarity.
When my heart stopped, when he was fighting to bring me back…Oh, Rennick.
“Then tell me again,” I whisper. “I want to hear it.” I need to hear it
Hands holding steady on my hips as he pulls back, his gunmetal eyes search my face before fixing on mine. He waits there, silently, waiting to make sure that I’m listening. That I’m there with him.
“Noa Fallamhain,” he starts, using the name that only became mine the moment his claiming bite pierced my throat.
The possessive edge of it sends a shiver down my spine.
“You are my heart living and beating outside of my chest. Every path in my life has led me back to you. My North Star, guiding me home. I will put myself between you and the world every time and protect you from every threat because I already know what it’s like to lose you.
” His voice tightens. “For less than three minutes, I lived without you, and it confirmed what I already knew. I have no interest in suffering through an existence without you. I love you, sweet one. Everything I am belongs to you.”
And then he’s kissing me, his mouth a steady, reverent claim. It’s his way sealing the vow he just spoke. He presses the truth of the words into me and makes me taste them on his tongue until they’re impossible to doubt.